Thomas Goodwin and the ‘Supreme Happiness of Man’

Abstract

This chapter will examine Thomas Goodwin's understanding of the saint's increasing joy as they pass from their natural state as a fallen human being into a state of grace and on to eternal glory. This is a journey which is characterised by an increasingly clear apprehension and understanding of God; initially seeing God in creation, then by faith in Christ, then seeing God in the actual presence of Christ, and ultimately in sharing the view of God that Christ himself has. In gaining this understanding of joy in its fullest, spiritual, sense, we obtain an insight into the devotional life of the saint of the seventeenth century, for whom the joys of eternity far outweighed the fleeting shallow joys of this world, and in the face of which the life of restraint and self-control was a more than fair exchange. It is therefore far closer to the heart of Goodwin's thought and experience than were the controversies into which he was drawn during the Civil War era. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)